Throw Yourself at the Ground and Miss
by Marsh of Sleep
Summary: If you've ever wanted to be neck-deep in the thoughts of a second-guessing weapon who is struggling with both a crush on his meister and all the gross, spontaneous romcom urges that come with it, look no further. For the SoulxMaka NSFW Week 2014 'birthday' prompt. Rated for awkward, over-thinking sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Soul Eater or Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy.

* * *

They're about twenty seconds into mind-numbing commercials when he decides to do something about it.

"Hold still a sec," he murmurs, leaning probably closer than he should on the couch and swiping the bridge of her nose with a finger. She doesn't shy away, which he takes a bit of guilty satisfaction in. It makes him a little giddy but also makes him feel kind of like a creep. Crushes are not things someone should have at this age.

Her vivid eyes are comedic when they cross to focus on the eyelash on the tip of his middle finger. "Oh. Thanks?" she replies just as quietly, though why either of them are being quiet is unknown. Her eyebrows furrow. There's an awkward silence as he continues to present the offered eyelash near her face, commercials on the television creating a white-noise of domesticity in the background. "Um…"

"Well?" he prods.

"Well what?" she shoots back, her breath faint and still somewhat warm as it reaches his knuckles. He's too aware of these things, he thinks.

"Make your wish, already," he grumbles. "I don't wanna hold this all day."

Maka blinks, her eyes crossing again, the crease between her brows deepening. "Wish?"

It's his turn to blink, at a loss. "Yeah. You know… you blow." Wow, he'd thought he was beyond feeling embarrassed by saying things like 'blow' in non-sexual conversation, but he's so wrong. "And make a wish. Like a candle," he says, his ears heating burning.

"It's not my birthday…"

The more he explains, the more he feels like he shouldn't have brought this up because it's making him feel stupid and maybe a bit like he's thirteen again. "It's not a birthday thing, it's— augh. How have you not heard of this?"

Maka is not fazed. "Probably because it sounds stupid."

Soul struggles for words for a moment. "Well— Okay, it's kinda childish," he admits. "But it's not any more stupid than the stuff you come up with."

She leans back at this, glaring at him. "What?"

"Man, whenever something completely random is amiss, you 'death children' assume someone_died._ It's morbid as shit. At least this is harmless," he insists, indicating the hand with her balancing eyelash.

Her mouth opens to retort, but nothing comes out. It closes with a click and she looks off to the side, contemplative. "But… Hm."

_"Yeah."_ He leans back as well, as the weird little 'moment' he'd been feeling is now dissipating into that sour taste he gets when he realizes he's pathetic and about as smooth as sandpaper. "If you're not gonna use it, I will," he flatlines, mildly disappointed at the uneventful end of the commercial interlude.

He does not anticipate his meister clinging to the subject with a tinge of desperation in her voice. "You can do that?" she nearly hisses, hand clamping around his wrist. "It's my eyelash— I grew it."

Soul scoffs, resisting the tugging on his arm and keeping her eyelash out of reach. "What? It prolly doesn't wanna even grant the wish of someone who thinks the whole thing is 'stupid'."

Her eyes narrow. "Oh, so it's alive now?"

He ignores the jab, musing aloud. "What should I wish for… eyelashes are pretty rare—" and that's when Maka makes the squeakiest of whiny growls in the back of her throat, yanks his hand back to her face, and hurriedly blows across the tip of his finger. The tiny golden hair disappears in the living room to mingle with the commercials.

She's pretty twitchy when he gives her a pointed look. Maka attempts to casually release his arm like nothing absurd has happened at all. He can't stop the twinge in his lips as he halfway smiles at her behavior. "Nerd."

"I'm sure you would have wasted it on something stupid, like a lifetime's supply of sushi."

He wouldn't have, for the record, but he laughs anyway. "What's wrong with that?"

Maka shrugs, drawing her legs up to the couch and settling cross-legged while she pretends to focus on an advertisement for toothpaste. "Wishes are for more important things," she says, voice taking on her usual no-nonsense lilt.

He hums, two parts interested, eight thousand parts distracted. Her legs being crossed causes her left knee to take up some of the space meant for him on the couch. It rests on his right thigh, overlapping on his hand. He draws his arm out of the way, but doesn't know where to put it. He hazards resting it on the back of the couch, stretching behind her.

He is too happy about this setup. It taints his voice when he asks, "So what did you wish for, then?"

It's not that she visibly stiffens, or even moves on the couch at all, but he chalks it up to knowing her for as long as he has to catch the subtle shift of anxiety around her before she says, carefully neutral, "I'm not telling."

Needless to say, she has his attention, though it's not that she hadn't already and has for the past several years. "What, a new book?" he teases. "Extra credit?"

The glance she gives him is withering, and so legitimately unamused he's wondering what he's just stepped into. "I should've wished for a new weapon," she drawls.

_"Ouch—_ hey, now," he says, placing a hand on his chest in mocked pain, though he couldn't say how much of it is truly fake. "You wound me." He looks away to the television with a smile that's hard to keep, unable to stomach the bite in her eyes, even in jest. He'd like to think he can handle most anything she can throw at him, but that's just a little too close to those whispering fears that never really go away.

On the screen, the commercials end and return to whatever show they'd been watching. He's annoyed that he has no clue what's going on, because he'd spent the entire first part of the show watching her instead, which is how he'd found that damned eyelash in the first place.

He's kind of hoping for her to refute her last statement, but it's not coming. That sour taste is back with a vengeance. He hates this constant roller coaster ride of his hopes flying higher than he ever wants them to go only to crash and burn in two minute intervals.

And they take off again without his consent when she sighs and says, "If you must know, I only have one wish."

He does not want to take the bait. He takes the bait. "Oh?"

She nods at the television. "Mm. I always wish it. On birthdays, at fountains, on falling stars."

Feigning curiosity is beyond him, now. "What is it?" he asks, candid. He watches light from the TV playing on her face when her lips do that poofy, pouty thing they do whenever she's amused and playing innocent.

"Secret." Maka leans back into the couch cushions looking pleased with herself. Her hair rubs against his shirt sleeve and lights him on fire.

He shifts a little on the couch and she lifts her knee to let him get situated. She leans it back on him when he's finished. An unbidden part of him causes the hand resting behind her to tingle with an imagined sensation of what her thigh might feel like, if he had put it there instead of the couch.

Soul tries to sound bored as if to somehow make up for how on-edge he really is. "You didn't even know you had a wish to make until I told you."

She shrugs again, pout overrun by a big grin. "If I told you, it might not come true." And, mysteriously, that grin is short-lived, fading into something that might be a little bit wistful, a little bit sad, though it's hard to tell from this angle. "I'm not risking the jinx."

"Wow. Hardcore wish."  
"Yeah."  
"So… how many birthdays are we talkin', here? Like, all of them?"

A little chuckle bubbles through her, and he's fucking proud of it, because that muted smile hurts him so subtly and quietly he'd do anything to make her laugh. Her head tilts back and it rests with a soft 'thunk' in the crook of his elbow. "Nooo, not all of them," she replies to the ceiling, the angle of her neck making her voice throaty and lower than the usual. It's sensual and confidential and it makes it hard to concentrate. "A few, though," she admits.

Soul racks his memory for something his meister wants and has apparently wanted a long while, and the fact that she is purposefully withholding this information even from him gets under his skin like an insatiable itch.

That voice in the back corner of his heart labelled 'Pipe Dreams' announces a few things he'd really like for her wish to be— all of which involve himself and a more intimate variant of their relationship— but he snuffs that voice out as best he can. Shoving his own wishes into someone else's heart makes him feel shitty at best.

Still, he needs to know like his lungs need air to breathe. "Not even a hint?"

Maka smiles, close-lipped and serene, gazing through the ceiling as if the answer resides somewhere in another galaxy. She gives him nothing.

He sighs, looking back at the television, disgusted with himself. What had he even anticipated when bringing up her eyelash, anyway? For her to blush and shyly puff her breath over his hand? For her to give him doe-eyes and admit she wished for a kiss? _Get real._ This is Maka Albarn— she'd never do any of those things. Certainly not with him. They're too comfortable with each other for that kind of bashful pre-teen shit.

Well. She is, anyway.

Honestly, he may have just wanted the excuse to touch her, which doesn't make him feel like that great of a person, in retrospect. Regardless, he hadn't expected to find out his meister had some boss-level wish that no one had top-secret clearance to. Or to get worked up over something as benign as a wish a girl wanted to keep to herself. Or to feel pitifully inadequate to have his closest friend be halfway lounging on him but have her eyes look so far away.

These constant crash-and-burns make him want to scythe his face off. He hates feeling this much. In his mind he knows none of these things are even remotely a big deal, yet it's like a disease that's becoming rapidly and irrevocably terminal. When he feels her head roll across his arm to look at him, he damns the universe, because _he __doesn't want to look back__-_- he isn't prepared for another plummeting crash over the most minor of turbulence because his hopes are a tissue paper airplane— but he knows he will.

He looks, and she's too fucking _Maka_ right now, her face seamlessly girl and woman and meister and friend in equal parts, simultaneous. The distance between their lips is something his brain now uselessly, constantly monitors when she's this close.

Maka doesn't say anything— merely stares at him as if weighing the second-rate cheeseball thoughts running rampant in his mind— so he blurts, "What."

There's still a nerve-wracking silence before she responds. With a quirk in her lips that make all the vowels in her words sound like an inside joke, she says, _"I'd never wish for another weapon."_

Well, add that to the list of things he hadn't been expecting. He's shell shocked and somewhat touched, really, but mostly he's just confused because Maka Albarn's train of thought follows tangible, comprehensible tracks only seldom.

"That's a relief," he deadpans, trying to grapple with any sense of logic in this conversation. He can feel the silence between them, colored by that quirking lip and the television dancing on the edges of her eyes, and he's suddenly swamped in That Moment again. It's a disparaging thought that he may be the only one who feels the electricity snapping between the air molecules, who would suffer awkward, romcom electrocution just to bullshit about childish superstitions with her. "I really didn't wanna hash out any résumés today."

Maka raises her bent knee and bops him on the leg with it. "I'm serious though," she murmurs, and it's true— her face loses all trace of jest. "It was a cruel thing to say."

He doesn't know how to respond to this, and would truthfully prefer to flee the couch and bullshit about anything else to lighten things up, but he only looks at her and her eyes and her lips and the bridge of her nose he still remembers the shape of and whispers, _"Okay."_

Which doesn't make any sense as a response. It's not like she'd asked him a question! He could have literally said anything else and it would have been better, like _'You've said crueler things before you've had your coffee'_, or _'I knew you were joking because I'm the coolest weapon anyway',_ or _'You don't have to apologize because I wasn't going to cry myself to sleep about it'_, or even just a fucking _'Thank you'._

Despite his inability to be coherent when his meister is approximately twelve inches from his face, she somehow miraculously understands him and whispers, "Okay," _back._

How can this make his face so instantly warm? She made a joke in passing, he played off the sting, she caught it anyway and apologized, and now he can only wonder what it would take to just turn his body slightly, to bring his free hand to her cheek and kiss her. It would be so easy right now. Would she shy away or would she simply wait for him to reach her?

It's while he's musing these fruitless thoughts that she breaks the silence with, "I'm gonna go to bed."

Just like that, she's up and away from him, padding around the coffee table. The sudden change in everything he'd been absorbed in is like the icy shock of jumping into a lake too early in spring. "U-uhh, alright. G'night," he tries.

"Night," she replies, disappearing in the shadows the television can't reach. "That was your hint earlier, for the record."

"Oh."

Her bedroom door clicks shut.

Oh.

_What?_

* * *

He's terminal. "I'm terminal."

"What was that?" Maka asks, looking up from her wallet with confusion.

"Nothin'." He watches her pull a coin from her wallet, scrutinize it, and put it back. She does this several times.

It's been weeks since the Eyelash Non-Incident. He has run her 'hint' through every imaginable thought process he can muster, only to feel like he's been blindfolded, spun around, and compressed with the pressure to find the piñata without falling on his face.

Soul leans on the motorcycle seat and waits for her to find the penny she'd found on Shibusen's front steps four days ago. He's long since stored the groceries in the saddlebags.

Now that he's aware of it, he's figured out her superstitious habits. Lucky coins, wishing fountains, and dandelion fluff are all standard fare. When they drive home later, he'll feel her chest swell as she holds her breath for the tunnel on 4th Street. When she's interested in whatever ambiguous message she's found in her fortune cookie on takeout night, she makes sure to eat the entire cookie and keeps the slip of paper in her wallet.

Maka makes a growl-like victory noise— so not feminine at all— finding her special coin, clutching it in the palm of her hand, and closing her eyes. Right now, that mystery wish is playing through her head, probably memorized after years of practice. He's seen her do this a hundred times, but had never really cared, only assuming she'd been wishing for him to not skip out on class or something. He feels pretty stupid about it now, having treated her wishes as trivial given the type of heavy ones he holds in his own heart.

_Fuck,_ he really wants to know what it is.

She blows into her fist and tosses the coin over her shoulder into the fountain nestled at the heart of Death Bazaar. She doesn't look back to see the splash. When she sees him watching her, her cheeks dust with pink. A sheepish giggle escapes her as she shrugs.

Maka stows her wallet into his jacket— doesn't even hand it to him, just takes the initiative and gets all up in his space— because she isn't wearing anything with pockets today. "Figure it out, yet?" she teases, climbing onto the motorcycle.

God, she's probably been wishing for him to fall in love with her, and every fountain, fortune cookie, birthday candle, dandelion, and falling star has steadily brought him to ruin.

Soul grumbles, mounting and starting the engine without comment. She wraps her arms around him and he feels her laugh sink through his body.

It hadn't been a conscious effort, but he finds himself holding his breath for a few seconds on 4th Street.

* * *

He's wearing a tank in public. This doesn't happen very often, as his scar reaches just high enough to make an appearance at the lower neckline, and he's had enough 'my eyes are up here' incidents to empathize with well-endowed women.

Still, he'd worn his jacket over it for the quick drive to pick Maka up from her meister training. It's too damn hot to make her walk home from what he essentially considers a boot camp, and it's too damn hot to be bothered with a thicker shirt under his riding jacket, too. That being said, he hadn't anticipated seeing her sitting at the bottom of the steps with a mangled blouse, her sports bra visible and held together with what looked like dental floss.

She hadn't even explained what happened, just greeted him with, "Hi. I'm starving. Let's go get a chicken!"

So they're getting a chicken. Or rather, he is, standing at the deli counter of the local grocery while Maka meanders around the display of different cheeses. He's wearing a tank; she's wearing his jacket. He hadn't mentioned it's her turn to cook tonight— he figures if her training was rough enough to destroy her clothes she probably could use a night off.

The woman behind the deli counter is taking the bird off the rotisserie spit and settling it in a take-out container. He has an itch between his shoulder blades and has an arm thrown behind his back, ineptly trying to reach it with his fingers while he waits.

It comes out of his mouth before he realizes it. "That still have the wishbone in it?"

The deli employee looks startled for a moment, then quietly laughs. "Yes it does. Be sure to dry it out before you use it," she smiles.

He feels embarrassed for various reasons, though none of them he can exactly pinpoint. He gives up trying to scratch his itch. "Uh, yeah. Thanks." He waves Maka over, since his wallet is in his jacket. She makes over-exaggerated moans of starvation that he's pretty sure she's stolen from his compendium of noises as he pays.

His mind is back on the subject of wishes and the one cryptic hint she'd given him.

_(I'd never wish for another weapon.)_

He can only figure this means one of two things: her wish has something to do with being a meister, or her wish has _something to do __with him._

Unfortunately, whenever he thinks about the latter option, the Pipe Dream department immediately takes over, bringing him to _all the absurd conclusions that __aren't allowed, god damn it._ He refuses to swim around in giddy daydreams and cheesy scenarios.

He's still trying to get his own wishes out of his head when Maka climbs behind him in the grocery store parking lot. She distracts him by scrubbing her nails between his shoulder blades.

_"__AH-haha_, oh, oh fuck yeah fffff—" Soul arches his back like a cat and Maka laughs, scratching faster and rucking up his shirt.

"You're like an animal," she says not un-affectionately, rubbing the spot with the heel of her hand when she's done. His tank is so thin he can feel the heat of her palm.

He rolls his shoulders, goosebumps running down his arms despite the early summer heat radiating from the pavement. "Who was the one foaming at the mouth at the deli counter?" he says before starting the bike and revving.

Her arms are warm around him, his jacket she wears absorbing the heat of the sun. Pitched to carry through the wind, she says in an almost-sexy voice near his ear, _"Dibs on the wings~"_

"Share!" he shouts back, unbearably happy with this moment in the universe.

* * *

She does end up sharing, albeit grudgingly. They camp out on the floor in front of the television, both having given up watching whatever show is on again. He's gnawing on the wing joints in his mouth while simultaneously prying apart what's left of the decimated chicken carcass. Maka pulls her legs to her chest and rests her chin on her knees.

"Is thish a sign you're turnin' into uh schych'path," she garbles around a leg bone.

He scoffs. "Don't mish'take me for Schtein."

Maka pulls the bone from her mouth and offers it to him. "All you're missing is the scalpel."

Soul rolls his eyes, then finds the sweet spot in the wing joint and takes a moment to appreciate it, slurping. He tosses the remains on the little pile of bones they've amassed on a paper towel. "No one appreciates my dedication. Here I am, wrist-deep in a dead body just to find my meister a wishbone, but _no—_"

He restrains from laughing at how abruptly her face lights up. For someone who had called blowing an eyelash off a finger 'stupid', the mention of a potential wish still gets her childishly excited. She rocks to her knees and hurriedly crawls over on them to help dig in.

This is probably the weirdest time to find her attractive. She's taken off his jacket to not get roasted chicken guts all over it, and he doesn't exactly stare at what her trashed shirt exposes, but his eyes take note of it. Then he gets a sudden urge to just touch her hair out ofnowhere.

It's pretty right now, framing her eyes at an angle just so, and he would like to touch it. He doesn't, of course, because: A) his hands are covered in poultry juice and, B) that's generally not something he should do regardless of the cleanliness of his hands. He would also like to stop having these horrific romcom urges at all hours of the day because it's mentally nauseating and kind of makes him want to puke.

Speaking of, "So on a scale from one to _gross_, where does 'rotisserie autopsy' land for all the wishes you've collected?"

Bones crack. "Pretty high up there. This is certainly the most morbid," she chirps, not looking disgusted at all. "Ugh I'm still starving. I could eat ten more of these."

"Ice cream after?"  
"Ooh, yes."

"…Where in the shit is thing supposed to be, anyway," Soul murmurs, picking through the remains. "Can we include this as 'bonding time' for our partnership report or will Stein call BS?"

She chokes on a squeaky giggle and he can't keep from grinning. "He'll probably give us extra points, considering."

They end up needing to Google wishbones on her laptop. After orienting themselves and what's left of the chicken, they realize it's staring them right in the face, still attached to some breast meat.

"Oh! I think this is it—" It's like finding buried treasure. Maka carefully extracts the Y-shaped bone and holds it overhead in victory.

She offers one end of the bone to him, all business. He shakes his head. "The deli-lady said it needs to dry out first. It's prolly too soft right now."

Maka wilts and stares at the wishbone in her hands.

"Oh come on, you can wait a few hours," he chides.

"Okay, okay." She grimaces. "I have chicken under my nails."

This is the strangest time to be in love with her. He's a lost cause. "Let's get ice cream."

* * *

They run into some Spartoi at the ice cream parlor by accident, and he's happy to see them for about two seconds before he realizes his alone-time he'd been enjoying with Maka the past hour will now be cut short.

That and he's still wearing a tank, which isn't a big deal around this particular crowd, but despite having showered and donned different clothes, Maka had put his jacket back on.

He'd given her a puzzled look for it and she'd only returned the look with puppy eyes with zero explanation as she shoved herself further into the confines of his jacket, daring him to deny her. Soul hadn't bothered to pry. Plus, he's so guilty of enjoying her wearing his stuff it's probably criminal.

Anyway, she's wearing his jacket. Spartoi does not fit in the parlor's booth by any means, either. They're crammed together like a can of rowdy sardines, and Maka is as close to in-his-lap as a person can be without actually sitting on them. His thighs are spread as wide as he can in the small space allotted so she can perch on the little bit of seat between his legs, and even though her wearing his jacket is netting him a lot of insinuative arching from Black Star's pencil-thin eyebrows, Soul thanks God she's wearing it because it's one more layer between her ass and his dick that's only three misplaced heartbeats away from full mast.

He's backed into the far corner of the booth, trapped on both sides by Kilik and Harvar, and this setup may or may not be the reason why he's draping all over Maka like an overprotective cape, concentrating on his poker face. The only way for him to stay engaged in the table's conversation (or at least appear that he's paying attention, because he most certainly isn't for what he thinks should be obvious reasons), is to rest his chin on her shoulder— he has an arm slipped under hers, holding his milkshake that he slurps from, though he's so preoccupied he can't even taste it. She doesn't appear to mind the outrageous proximity, but he thinks she'll mind a whole hell of a lot more if his dick gets hard enough to make itself known.

She smells like leather and fabric softener and whatever the fuck flavor her shampoo is supposed to be. Combined, the scents make no sense, but it's so familiar it hurts. Ox gives her hell for not dodging some obscurely-named obstacle in meister ass-kick camp this morning, and she quips something back about gullible people and sand traps, though Soul has mostly zoned out of the conversation at that point.

He's a little terrified that he's still entertaining the thought of kissing her neck, even in front of everyone else. He won't do it. But the desire to is formidable. What's worse is that even if he wishes for the rest of Spartoi to leave them be (which he kind of does), he knows he wouldn't kiss her then, either. Even if, by some unfathomable miracle, she'd be sitting in his lap like this (which she wouldn't), he still wouldn't try.

If he could narrow the hundreds of wishes he has down to a single one— one that he would ask on every candle and dark tunnel— he thinks he would wish for courage.

His shake tastes a little sour, now.


	2. Chapter 2

They'd forgotten Blair gets somewhat feral around bird bones. The trash bin is on its side when they walk in, the apartment scattered with shattered splinters and crumbs, and the cat watches them, dark-eyed, with the wishbone between her fangs.

Maka doesn't say anything so much as make a surprised shriek and point at the feline in judgement.

Soul slurps on the leftovers at the bottom of his foam milkshake cup and watches his meister scramble around the apartment after their mutual roommate. He shuts the front door with a nudge of his foot. After a few laps around the coffee table and one of the dining chairs, there's a perfumed poof of smoke followed by floating pumpkin appearing in the living room.

Blair sails out of Maka's reach, magicking open the window pane and escaping into the night. The meister nearly throws herself from their third story apartment, hanging out the window to scream obscenities and threaten, _"__I'm gonna turn your tail into knots!"_

He chokes on his milkshake, because she's bending out the window and he gets a very unscripted upskirt, and he doesn't know what makes him feel more stupid: that the sight of her panties does anything to him at all considering he does their laundry every other week (and damn it, he recognizes that pair), or the fact that he looks away blushing like grade-schooler.

Ten minutes of stomping and grumpy housecleaning later, she holds the dustpan while he sweeps up the last pile of the chicken murder scene in the kitchen.

"Back to lost pennies, I guess," he says.

Her bottom lip is extra pouty from this angle. "I was looking forward to it, too," she mourns. She picks up the dustpan when he's finished and shuffles over to the trashbin.

Soul rests an elbow on the top of the broom handle. "It's not like you would have won the wishbone, though."

"What?"

"That wish was _mine,"_ he grins.

"You don't know that." She stalks over to him and nabs the broom from under him to reattach the dustpan. "Besides, it would have chosen the person with the best wish," she haughtily sniffs.

He scoffs, washing his hands at the sink. "Who's to say mine isn't better than yours?"

She comes to stand at the sink with him and bumps him with her hip. He's braced for it, though, which forces her to try harder. The end result is her plastering herself on him, trying to force him out of the way. "Mooooove you lump, aargh!"

"You're so impatient," he laughs, thoroughly enjoying the contact, though he knows it's about to get violent if he doesn't give in soon. He flicks droplets of water in her direction before he retreats.

She still manages to smack him even while rubbing the water from her face, her retaliation lightning-quick. As she's soaping up her hands, she says, "What would you have wished for, anyway?"

He doesn't miss a beat, draping the towel he'd used to dry his hands over her head. "Lifetime's supply of sushi, duh." Soul dodges the elbow she flings behind her.

"I'm serious!" Maka yanks the towel from her head and dries her hands on it as well. She idly folds the terrycloth while giving him that look again, complete with his jacket dwarfing her. Her voice is deceptively softer, accommodating. "Really. What's your wish?"

The hypocrisy of this situation is not lost on him, but he plays along for the moment, leaning on a kitchen counter. "I have a lot of wishes," he replies, smug.

Her accommodation is criminally short-lived. Maka caws one of those patented squeaky cries and attacks him with the towel. He catches her wrists and they laugh as they struggle with each other.

"Just one," she insists, still trying to fling her fingers and graze him with the end of the towel, though it's not even close to hitting him. "You only get to choose one! _Ever._ What do you wish for?"

He already knows the answer to this, and it sobers him abruptly enough that it's startling. His meister notices, her eyes wide and peering into his face as they quit wrestling in tandem. Soul can feel her pulse ticking under his fingers, her wrists smooth and warm in his hands, and her curiosity threatens to eat through him.

This. He wants this. He wants to know. He wants to jump.

He could do it, right now. Just bow his head a few inches and cease his endless wondering. She probably still has hints of her sundae on her tongue.

Soul dredges up a bottom-of-the-barrel, b-movie smile and pastes it on as best he can.

"Secret," he softly says.

Maka blinks rapidly for a few seconds before giving him a skeptical look. She opens her mouth to complain, but he cuts her off.

_"__Ah_. Nope. Not happening."

She croaks, admitting defeat. "Fiiiine. That's fair."

His smile is a little more genuine at her frustrated acquiescence. He catches little bits of her still-damp fingers as he slides his hands away from hers and takes the towel, which he tosses on the counter before heading to his room for the night. His palms continue to tingle.

"But I did give you a hint, last time," she says behind him, voice echoing off the kitchen tile.

Yes, she had. The hint that's been plaguing him for weeks— enough to make him sick of himself. It's pretty childish, but everything has felt that way with this stupid crush of his, so it doesn't stop him from looking at her over his shoulder and saying, _"I'd never wish for another meister,"_before hitting the lightswitch and leaving her in the darkness of the kitchen.

He'd expected to hear her complain or make another squawking pterodactyl noise, but all he gets is silence.

It's just as well. He doesn't feel much like laughing at her reaction anyway.

* * *

Grime swirls down the shower drain as water drips off his nose. He sighs. That had been one of the more gross-assed P-K's to date. Even its corrupted soul had been chewier than the usual. Blegh.

Thankfully they don't have to return tonight. He'd much rather flop in the rickety motel bed with Maka and put off returning to work as long as possible. Just have her near and sleep and sleep and—

"Soul?"

He starts, jolted from the blankness his thoughts had settled in. "Yeah?" His voice echoes loudly and he winces.

"I'm going to the vending machine. You want anything?"

"Uh." Nothing sounds appetizing at the moment— not after thinking about that P-K, anyway— but he hasn't eaten in awhile and figures he should. "Whatever you're havin' s'fine, I don't care."

There's a queer silence that follows, and he strains to hear a reply through the running shower. "…Okay," she says somewhat strangely. "No complaining for what I bring back!"

Soul scrubs his scalp, searching for any leftover pre-kishin gunk. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

He doesn't mean to be short with her, he's just beyond ready for this day to be friggen over. It's been a hellaciously long night and dawn will be streaming happily through the windows in less than an hour. He would like to be unconscious before then, if he has any luck.

Out of the shower and reasonably dry, he's pawing through his duffle for some clean clothes when he smells smoke.

It's merely a faint hint, but another inhale assures him he's not imagining it. He squints at the cheap vanity lights over the bathroom mirror, but none of them indicate they might be burning up. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he cracks the door open and pokes his head out.

"Maka?" he tries before taking in the darkness of the room. A strange, yellowed glow is bleeding near a corner of the bed. His eyes need a few seconds to adjust from the bright bathroom lights, but he eventually makes out Maka's face lit by a tiny flame.

Somewhat like a possessed moth, he steps further into the room. His meister is holding one of those ultra-unhealthy, painfully sweet, individually-wrapped honey buns in one hand, the wrapper halfway peeled back. The exposed end has a single candle shoved in it.

"Umm, happy birthday?" She makes a quick glance to the side at an ancient digital alarm clock. "As of five-ish hours ago."

It's not his bi—oh, wait. Actually it is his birthday. An unattractive noise tumbles from his mouth. _"Uhhhhh—"_

Maka squirms a little on the corner of the bed, looking equal parts sheepish and excited. "Yeah. I tried not to take a mission this weekend, but it didn't really work out. Sorry. I don't have a cake or anything." She holds up the honey bun a little higher in offering. "So."

"I…" He wants to laugh but it just won't come out. Honestly, he hadn't thought about it. He'd known, logically, that his birthday was going to occur, but it had slipped his mind in wake of the assignment, and though he'd acknowledged that 'tomorrow' is already 'today', he hadn't put two and two together. "I smelled smoke," he says, dumbfounded.

She waves him over with her free hand. "Hurry— the wax is gonna melt all over it and get gross."

Somewhere in his mind he's dimly aware he's still in a towel, but given the effort she'd made to make him feel a little special, and also given her fixation and reverence for wishes, he's drawn forward to her with no room for second-thoughts.

She's a lot shorter than he is, sitting on the bed. Maka holds the pastry out for him. He bends lower to meet it, one hand keeping his towel in place. He glances from the candle to her face, trying to get a firmer grasp on this dreamlike situation. He can't be sure, but she might be wearing a blush with that gentle smile.

"Make a wish," she quietly says.

And it comes so easily to him— not even in the form of words, but en masse with the abstract ideas and feelings and dreams he keeps. It's simple and second-nature to call it all up in a mere instant, because Soul Evans has been wishing for long time.

He takes one last glance at her glowing face as she looks up at him, her hair framing her eyes just so, and he burns that image behind his eyelids. He touches the side of her wrist, holding her and the pastry in place, and he softly blows out the flame, and makes the jump, leaning forward in one smooth movement across the distance his brain has been eternally calculating, kissing her while they are still blind in the smoky, sudden darkness.

The breath she sucks in is harsh and surprised. Though she jerks the moment their lips touch, she does not shy away. It's a three-second peck at best— short enough to not be obscene, long enough to not be mistaken.

"Thank you," he murmurs, prepared as much as he will ever be for the crash and burn.

Leaning back up, he adjusts to the light still sneaking out from the open bathroom behind him, and observes her wide, disbelieving eyes. He's stuck somewhere between terror and happiness, but he's been stuck in this place for so long that it feels strangely ordinary. Other than the ever-familiar, heart-pounding anticipation, he's almost calm.

Her wrist twitches in his fingers. "Did you just do that?" she whispers, voice fragile and candid.

He swallows. He nods. "Yeah. Pretty sure."

He's a dead man. He's dead, he's ruined it, the whole thing is fucked— at least he'd been able to finally go through with it, gliding on too-high hopes before plummeting to his inevitable death. He should probably let go of her, but some stubborn part of him refuses, infected by the brief tendril of courage the lone birthday candle had granted him.

"Oh," she breathes. Her eyes are loaded guns when she says,_ "Okay."_

His lungs freeze. He's taken back to late-night, unmemorable television shows and couch cushions. "…Okay?"

She swallows. She nods. He tongue peeks out to wet her lips. "Yeah."

He's unsure where his mind is as he slowly, carefully, he leans forward again, skipping over what are probably several rules in the Order of Things. Her eyes are on him as he deliberately tilts his head and moves lower, going for something he's always wanted and pressing his mouth into the side of her neck. Her breath hitches before shuddering out of her, feathering across his skin and coating him in goosebumps. He wants to linger here, to experience more of this warmth under his lips, but he pulls back to read her face.

She's focused on him— on him, _here, in this galaxy._ His throat is tight and his voice comes out raw. "Get it?"

"Mm." Terror grips him at the idea of that delayed crash and burn. He's become accustomed to it happening— why isn't it happening? "Um, will you sit? It's hard to see your face."

Oh. The bathroom's light is behind him, so he's not much more than a shadow to her. Her wrist slides out of his hand as he gingerly sits next to her on the bed, feeling her gaze on him like a brand. If asked, he would deny his knuckles are white around the edge of his towel, and he would promptly go to hell for lying. She's still holding the honey bun, and in any other moment he'd probably laugh, but his heart is kind of riding on whatever is going to come out of her mouth next.

But she says nothing, and eventually the enduring silence forces him to wonder if she's been waiting for _him_ to say something, instead. The way she's looking at him right now reminds him once more of the Eyelash Non-Incident two months ago, when her head had been resting on his arm, when he'd wanted so, so much to feel her lips. She'd been silent and expectant then, like now, and… maybe she'd been feeling the electricity arcing between them all along.

He doesn't know what he can say that doesn't sound like it's been ripped straight out of a cliched script, so he reaches over with a hand and holds the edge of her jaw, tilting to the side as if to casually spill a secret that they both know isn't coming (and it's not a secret anymore, either). Her eyes close, trusting, and he nudges her mouth with his. They honey bun wrapper crinkles in her hand. And then—

Then the bun falls to the floor with an ugly slap. Then her body shifts to face him. Then her hands light on his chest, his thigh, and _then he's really kissing her,_ his mouth slanting against hers and her fearless tongue sweeping across his hazardous teeth.

Maybe the pipe dreams aren't so out of reach. Maybe he's not hallucinating the way her thumb strokes across his clavicle, how her fingers twist in the still-damp ends of his hair at his neck. Their noses bump when they turn to each other in concert, each resting on a folded leg while dangling the opposite off the edge of the mattress. The bed tilts them together, old springs squealing with their combined weight.

The little breaths she makes into his mouth shoot sparks through his spine. He braves mapping out her shoulder, a few of his fingers catching under her shirt collar, and oh, she has goosebumps too. He could do a friggen jig if he wasn't so busy suffering through cycles of chill nervousness and sweltering excitement.

Maka's hand disappears from his thigh (which is good, because if it hung around any longer, his dick would've said hello), and relocates to the corner of his mouth to gently hold him back as she pries herself away, catching her breath. The look she gives him, face half-shrouded in shadow, is something he's seen before, but never on her, and certainly never in his direction. Without much thought, he turns his head just enough to catch her fingers between his teeth.

There's one heavy moment of stillness, and this spur-of-the-moment kissing situation accelerates into something potentially _a lot more than kissing. _Because he recognizes that look now— it's a housecat gone feral, pupils blown wide and endlessly dark. Her intent, razor-sharp focus twists heat in his gut. He throbs, so aroused that even vague feline analogies sound pretty interesting (like being the mouse caught by Maka Albarn, or being the lover whose neck she sinks her teeth into— but that doesn't make sense because it's the male who does that, so why is that even hot? Should he be getting hot about cat analogies in the first place?), but honestly his brain is bloodless at the moment so any thoughts are essentially moot.

Her fingers slip out of his hold, the pads dragging across his jagged teeth, and she shifts again, bringing both legs under her to properly kneel on the bed. The movement tips her closer, both of her hands braced on his folded knee, and he's struck dumb, wondering if she's read his mind as she ducks her head until her mouth neatly connects with his throat.

The room spins with his abrupt light-headedness. Her tongue is wet on his skin, curling around his nervously-bobbing Adam's apple. He's harder than he's ever dared to be around her, his erection resting on his thigh, and he tries to say her name but only silence comes out. He tilts his head back a slight quarter-inch for her, the noise escaping him skirting dangerously close to a moan.

Her teeth scrape his neck and, _oh damn,_ he should probably make an attempt at communication, because this is the girl he knows and the woman he wants and the meister he trusts and the friend he loves and all four of those things are doing a damn good job at seducing him at a _thousand miles an hour_, and he just wants to verify that they're both speeding towards the same destination.

"Shhhh_it—"_

One of his hands slings around the back of her neck, gently squeezing and tugging her closer because verbal communication is for people who retain an IQ when their meister is leaving them a tentative hickey. (She's giving him a hickey; this is officially the best birthday.) His eagerness accidentally tips the tenuous scale of her balance, though, and Maka topples over with an,_"Eep!"_

He ends up on his back, his outer leg propped on the edge of the bed to keep the both of them from sliding off, arms wrapped around her in habit. Part of his shoulder smarts from where her nose had inelegantly smashed into.

Two things become painfully apparent. The first is it's drafty all of a sudden, and he realizes with not a small amount of panic that _he's lost the towel._ The second is that, as Maka unfolds her tangled legs and stretches them behind her while groaning about her nose, her warm, supple thigh becomes caught between both of his, and her hipbone is now pressing into his cock with horrible, wonderful, worrisome pressure.

Her face is like a hot iron searing into the crook of his shoulder. "Ssssorry," she whispers nervously.

Soul takes a breath, but it does nothing to help him. He doesn't want to discourage her, but if they continue where they left off the fact that he's extremely unclothed is going to come into play one way or another, and he's really hoping that way does not end in murder. "S'ok. My fault anyway." He runs what he hopes is a soothing hand down her back, though it ends up under her shirt on the return trip despite his best intentions.

The tiny beads of sweat on her spine are tremendously distracting. She exhales with a stutter. "A-also I dropped your birthday cake. Thing."

He scoffs without really meaning to. "…I'm not too heartbroken about it." The tension between them eases a touch when he feels her smile into his neck. Maka doesn't grope him, but she does cautiously touch him in a way that is weighted with knowledge, her callouses catching on his chest and reading the braille of his scars. It makes it difficult to hold still, so he concentrates on teasing her just to keep the playing field even. "Peeved that you ate it before I even got a chance, though."

Her hand freezes over his ribs. "Wh—"

"I can totally taste it. When we kiss." Because they had kissed. In reality. Because that is a thing that happened. No take-backs.

If she wasn't sprawled on top of him he'd probably float away like an idiot.

Maka grasps for an excuse while he continues to feel up her back on perverted, gleeful auto-pilot. "I… had to make a spot for the candle?"

He doesn't understand why the shape of her shoulder blades is so intriguing— they jut out of her tender skin, tightly framed with lithe muscle, and he runs his fingertips around them endlessly. "You're a monster," he accuses.

She swats at his chest, giving a short laugh and propping herself up a few inches to look at him.

_"Nnfgh—"_

"No complaining, remem…" Maka stills, face abruptly blanking.

Blood roars in his ears. He grits out an embarrassed smile, realizing his fingers are somewhat forcefully pressed into the flesh of her back. He eases the pressure, laying his hand flat and as platonically as one can while up someone else's shirt, answering her silent question with, "I kinda lost the towel. By the way."

Maka's torso makes an infinitesimal movement, involuntarily testing a theory before she can stop herself. Like pressing the red button surrounded by warnings to not press the red button, her hip nudges his shaft.

His hand tangles in the folds of her shirt, his toes curling. He tries his very best to not wheeze.

Even in the semi-darkness, the red hue of her blush is rather impressive. "Oops."

"Yeeeaah. About that…"

He's caught off-guard when she gently asks, "Do you wanna stop?"

His first instinct is to shake his head vigorously, but restrains himself because shouldn't he be the one asking that? "Do you?"

Just her toes move, twisting around in starchy bedcovers and grazing the insides of his ankles. "No… I'd like take off my shirt," she says, like a _total brat_, like she's been served something she did not order off the menu and has been waiting impatiently for the refund. It's so frank and _not sexy at all_, yet he suffers a meltdown anyway, higher brain function becoming radioactive uselessness.

He's terminal.

_"Oh—"_ she says, startled when she feels his cock twitch beneath her. Her voice carries a tiny note of awe. "I felt that."

"It… does that. I'm, uh, _woah__ fuck,_ okay—"

Maka struggles with her shirt, trying to pull it over her head while still sprawled on him. He eagerly helps, though he's blindsided whenever her weight presses into him, squinting through that so-close-to-painful-it-may-as-well-be haze, and before he knows it she's shirtless and the silk of her tits is inches from his face.

He really wants to fulfill the legacy of a million pornos by attaching his mouth to her breasts, but she seems to have other desires in mind, simply pressing her chest against his chest and_oh, that's nice actually._ Maka slides against him, skin warm and soft and agonizing.

Soul finds her sides, trying to comprehend by touch the way her torso melts to her waist and flares back out again. She shudders and squirms a lot more than he'd expected when he kneads her hips, and he's forced to lift her a little to adjust the situation of his junk, sighing relief when he's no longer under the threat of being crushed by her unpredictable hipbone.

God, her little cotton shorts must be riding lower the more she rubs against him, because his dick is trapped against more skin than fabric and that is a hell of a difference. He squeezes her hips again and she gasps (this must seriously be a sensitive thing for her, he notes, giddy) and then her hands are in his hair while she makes a hostile takeover of his mouth.

It reaches a point where it's impossible to not meet the slides of her body with firm tilts of his hips, and he has to wonder how far she's wanting to take this. Every molecule in his body haggles for sex (_'Sex! Maka! Sex_**_ with _**_Maka!'_) but that is something he feels he should probably keep a leash on, even if it is a struggle. A wonderful, terrible struggle made more so as Maka discovers she can basically control his voice with an earlobe between her teeth.

One strong snap of his pelvis escapes him and Maka sucks in a surprised breath, body lurching forward. She counterbalances by propping herself with her hands to press back into him and the thigh trapped between her legs, which earns yet another gasp from her mouth, her mesmerizing breasts jolting with the motion. _Welp. _There's no stopping him this time— he can feel her ribs expand with her quickened breath as he holds her still and cranes his neck to close his lips around her tit.

The bed shakes as her rattling elbows that threaten to buckle. _"Sssoul__,_ that's—" She falters mid-sentence when his tongue finds her nipple and nudges it around. "Ooohgod," she murmurs, voice dipping low. Writhing between his hands, she shakily whispers, "You can bi— _aaah."_

Her moan buzzes through her and into his teeth and more than a few blood vessels dry up in his brain. Like lightning, she's under him in an instant, and he's pressing one of his knees against her crotch while holding her torso to his mouth like a meal. She trembles with head tilted back, her body doing hypnotic things as she slowly grinds into his offered thigh and hums encouragements.

What gets him hot the most, though, is the constant overlay of what he knows about her body after years of being held in her hands— the lay of her muscles as he's flung around her, the flex of her waist, the very taut, elastic nature of her skin in movement— and finding these otherwise familiar qualities presented to him from a new perspective. He gives up worrying her nipples to instead lean back and simply run his palms across her skin while trying to parse the many people Maka Albarn is to him.

She's liquid from his efforts, breathy whines escaping from the throatiest part of her, and every microsecond they're touching she shows him something new and yet still inherently _Maka. _Her palms run up his arms with an unfamiliar greed. She says his name like she has thousands of times, but it shakes him like it never has before.

And while he's preoccupied with her mouth, attempting to tease more of his name from her because he has developed an addiction, she short-circuits him with the undemanding, somewhat economical caress she gives his erection. He can only freeze, breath halted, as she touches him like she would touch his weapon body, with all the surety and grace of someone well-acquainted. It's a straightforward thing. His best friend is touching him. He is in her hands, and he's harder than stone and hotter than the center of the earth.

He's burning up. Heat radiates off his face and neck and chest as she watches his expression. Despite the calm grip she has around his cock, the dawn is slowly creeping through the motel windows and lighting up the nervousness in her eyes. He takes the silent route, pressing his forehead to hers and nudging his hips forward.

Maka whispers surprised observations, but he can't hear them, because she's cautiously swiping over his head and rendering him deaf to anything but his thudding pulse. He chokes out a smattering of curses when she feels out his slit with the pad of her thumb, slick with his pre-come.

Things blur somewhere between kissing her cheek and devouring her neck while she fondles him. Somehow his fingers have travelled south, and the noise that erupts from her mouth when he touches her through her shorts is the stuff wet dreams are made of.

_"Fuuuck," _he growls into her ear. "You're soaked."

She squeezes his cock in reply, and he clenches a moan behind his teeth to keep her from going deaf. "It's uncomfortable," she tells him, hips restless as he boldly cups her in his palm. "I wanna get rid— haah— get rid of them."

So he gets rid of her shorts. Or tries to, after awkwardly disentangling himself from her and hissing as he slides out of her hands. He drags her shorts just an inch past her hips and she says, "Wait."

Shit.

"These too," she says, thumbs shyly hooking under the panties he'd left behind.

Oh. Oh _shit._

She does this charming little shimmying thing and he inches her panties off her ass. Today is the neon leopard print number that always static-clings to the pillow cases in the laundry. They're like a familiar, annoying friend, and it's ridiculous that he feels mentally supported by underwear simply because they are commonplace in his life. Soul is forced to perform a shoddy logistical puzzle game, trying to drag her clothes of her long, rock-solid legs without getting smashed in the face or racked.

It's a special victory when he finally gets the blasted things off her ankles, and he tosses her shorts and panties flippantly away. Which he then immediately regrets because, "Aah— I think that landed on the bun, damn it."

He's intensely aware of her legs spreading to accommodate him, but he doesn't mention it or try to draw attention to the fact that he catches a fleeting glimpse of her snatch before being tugged a little too hurriedly back on top of her, hips nestled between her legs.

"No big deal," she says with a nervous smile. "Unless you're talking about the food."

What are they talking about again? All he can think about right now is _skin, everywhere is skin__._Her legs come to rest at his hips and heaven have mercy because her pussy is wet and soft and kissing the underside of his cock right now, and trying to concentrate on anything else takes _so much brainpower._

"What if I _was_ talking about the food?" he manages before he gives in to a slow grind against her.

"That is so—" she quakes, biting her bottom lip and whimpering in the back of her throat, "—past the five second rule."

No, he seriously can not keep going with the usual banter right now. He tries not to crush her as he leans down and presses his cheek to the side of hers. "Maka."

"Sorry, I'm really nervous," she blurts.

"We can stop," he says as gently as he can manage.

She shakes her head, burying her nose into the crook of his neck. "No."

"Anytime. We can stop."

"No, please keep doing this." 'This' being his understated thrusting against her, which she encourages him to continue with her hands ghosting down his sides. Maka angles his hips a little, twisting her own beneath him, and suddenly he's aligned with her folds, violently replacing everything he'd previously believed to be 'wet' and 'soft' with this new, jaw-slacking version.

Her cheekbones nearly glow, eyes bright between those golden lashes. He kind of wants to make a wish on all of them, and he's going to blame _that_ romcom thought on his horrifically anemic brain. One of her hands brushes his hair from his face as she looks at him like she's trying to tell him secrets with only her eyes. Her hand lifts to the nape of his neck and tugs him down to put her mouth at his ear.

Her breathless voice makes his nerves pang. "Soul."

The movement of his hips hitches for a moment before redoubling his efforts. "Feels good?"

"Y—_mmn!_ Y-yes. You're… rubbing my clit and _it's __really good."_

Soul groans, hyper-aware of that tough nub dragging under his dick with every pass. This is as close as they can get without penetration, and he's coated with her slickness, so unbearably ready to slide inside her. He could easily come like this, with her hands clutching at him with creeping urgency, tangled up in hair and arms and legs and just the smell of lingering fabric softener and travel shampoo and now arousal— a scent that _he's_ brought out from _her_ and it's_all over his dick—_

And he rehearses it in his mind, how to ask if he can have sex with her, trying his damnedest to make it polite and gentlemanly and hopefully touch on the fact that he's disgustingly in love with her and has the utmost respect for her, but every attempt invariably takes that turn down the gutter. He ends up with things that sound like a vintage 80's triple-X porno, like _'Maka, I really care about you, is it alright if I nail you with my cock and fuck you senseless'_, like he has some monstrous penis that she'll want nothing more than to shake her hips on, like he's not one-hundred percent virgin and stands even the faintest chance at lasting longer than two minutes inside her.

Luckily, the two of them are of a wavelength, and while he's still trying not to get too excited rubbing against her folds while simultaneously preparing to pop the 'let's fuck' question, Maka arches into him and gasps out a breathy, _"I want it inside."_

His hips slowly come to a standstill as Soul tries to decide if he'd wished a little too hard on that candle. They share a glance, though it's not a glance at all but a lengthy exchange that places him in a weird, emotional free-fall that renders him stupid. She looks to him, searching for his eyes as she brushes his hair away from his sweating forehead and holds it aside.

The splotchy flush that paints her cheekbones darkens, sneaking down her neck. He can feel her nervous breathing, riding the swell of her lungs underneath him. "No?" she asks, making a valiant effort at keeping the meekness out of her voice but not quite pulling it off.

"I want to," he hears himself blurt, throat dry. And she blinds him with the biggest grin, like he's just told her they're moving into a library and adopting all the books as their children. His smile back is automatic because she's freakin' contagious, and even if her happiness makes him embarrassed, she won't let him duck his head.

Maka kisses him with a smile, which is weird and kind of giggly and self-perpetuating. "I want to do this with you," she says.

He nods a little, face still framed by her hands. "You sure about this?"

"Mm." Her body shifts and he hisses. He's surprised— somehow, during their tiny conversation, he'd forgotten how crazy being naked on top of her actually is. Maka throws her arms around his neck again, arms cradling the back of his head and bringing him close. "I want it to be you."

Oh, God. The romcom disease and Pipe Dream department abruptly merge into a monster-hybrid, and if his dick weren't already harder than granite he'd probably get a little emotional. As it is, he's not positive his face is completely on straight, so he's glad to bury it into her neck and try his hand at marking her.

By the time his mouth slips off her skin, she's twitchy and restless. He bites the bullet. "I'm uh—" _painfully, horrendously, obviously,_ "pretty new to this, so…"

He feels her nod against him. She whispers, "Me too. Let's try."

"Yeah." She lets go so he can get his knees under him. "You're still on birth control?"

"You're the one who packed it for me," she says, lips tilting with amusement.

He can't stop from licking his lips as she carefully scoots closer to him, thighs draping over his. "I know. Figured I should ask, anyhow." _Fuck,_ that is her pussy and that is his hand teasing her clit with the blunt head of his cock and those are her bright eyes watching him do this to her with interest—

_"Ooh…_ We're good. It's fine."

The number of times he's seen a penis enter a woman is literally immeasurable. The internet is a place and he is there a lot. He knows it's possible. …Still, with these circumstances, it seems a little worrisome. He drags his erection across her folds, slicking himself up. Her hips jerk and tremble. "Shouldn't I touch you a bit, first?"

"Ssssoul if you do _not stop teasing me I'm gonna_— Actually, _here._ Just."

_"Wuah, shit—"_

"Let me."

His blood boils when she rubs a firm palm across her slit before knocking his hand out of the way, giving him a wet pump, and angling his dick at her glistening entrance. Maka's head falls back to the bed, her spare hand clutching one of his spread knees for leverage as she presses up and around him.

Curses shoot from his lips as he wraps his hand around hers, holding his dick steady until her body yields to him. After the fact, he glides into her rather effortlessly, snug and warm like it's a perfectly natural place for him to be. She lets out a long moan that he feels in ways that had never once occurred to him were possible. Her nails rake up her own chest and her insides give a little pulse—

_"Ffffuck. _Maka._ Fuck, _I can _feel_ you, aagh—"

The look she gives him is such utter, smoke-eyed sex that he leans over and tries to taste it from her mouth. It pushes him in deeply, making her eyebrows crinkle with an ambiguous wince that he can't make heads or tails of. She gasps. "Soul."

"Hurt?"

"Just— just different." Maka takes a steadying breath and presses further around him, her body twining and fitting more of his cock inside until her swollen lips are at the hilt and touching him, and he can only hum and curl his toes and drown. It only lasts a moment before she backs off, breathing more comfortably when they're not so crammed together.

Her fingers find her clit, just resting over it as if making sure it's still there. She takes his lip between her teeth, lets it scrape through to pop out of her mouth while her hips give a tiny roll. "It's good. You can… _Ohh."_

And when she says, _"Fuck me,"_ it comes out an iron-clad demand disguised in gentle, blurry softcore, and the next thing he knows he's leaning back, squeezing her hips and snapping forward his own, feeling her flesh grip and clench and melt him to pieces.

Between her constant writhing and his thrusting, he inevitably slips out of her twice. After the second, her creamy legs dig into the bed for purchase. Maka presses into his sides with her knees, tilting her pelvis until there's _no way out of her__,_ leading him to grind more than thrust. The bedsprings whine under his knees as he stirs her up, and he's torn between throwing his head back and enjoying the wet coil of her or watching her mouth form around her moans.

Something changes very abruptly for her— the tilt, the pressure, her fingers on her clit— and her voice goes throaty in that way that catches him off-guard and drives him mad, urging him with mewling whines that take on a note of desperation.

But he won't find out where all of it leads. He tries to stop, but his hips refuse to comply. It's futile and he knows it— it's already in motion, already past the point of stopping, and he's so tense his bones are ready to snap. "Maka," he rasps out, throat hoarse, "I can't. I _can't—"_

He clenches his eyes and all he can hear is the sound of their bodies meeting and his meister panting out encouragements like _'Go ahead'_, and _'Do it, do it'_, and just forcing him apart with his name. His face blazes when he hurriedly slips out of her, choking on halting groans as he spills across her stomach.

God, and it won't _stop_— what kind of ridiculous backed-up load is this? He peels open an eye and finds her watching him with a dizzying combination of fascination and arousal. By the time he's done coming, he's braced on hands and knees, distantly wondering if he's going to have a heart attack. Maka runs her hands down his damp shoulders, gently rubbing his arms.

With a shudder, he realizes how damned cold it is being naked and sweaty in an air-conditioned motel room. He's left a puddle of himself (more like one of the Great Lakes, really) that's kind of creeping close to her navel, so he grunts and searches around for his long-lost towel because jizz-in-belly-button is not a fun time.

He mutters an apology, gently wiping her clean. He's embarrassed on more than a few levels, though the way she jerks and sucks in her bottom lip between her teeth as he cleans her up is nice and distracting. Though he supposes that only means Maka still has her switch flipped because he came on his own like a predictably bad joke.

"Like really. Sorry," he says again.

"Don't be." Her eyes drift to his shrinking dick and he tries to keep his cool. "…You could've done it inside."

_"Buuh."_ He doesn't stand a chance. "You—" He shudders again, but it has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with her spread legs caressing his sides. "I wasn't…sure. How all that worked. So." There really aren't any pornos that highlight birth control.

Maka's eyes melt into a quiet gentleness. Her mouth bows into a pleased line. "For future reference, then. Thanks for the, uhhm, concern?"

'For future reference' implies _all kinds of things_, and he lowers his head with a tired scoff that totally doesn't cover up the big grin he's sporting.

This is approximately when the weight of his exhaustion slams into him like a stone, and whatever muscles in his lower back that contribute to the 'pelvic thrust' game are not happy with life. He groans his way upright and gently maneuvers one of her legs out of the way. "I needa …go. Over there," he says, and promptly collapses on his side with a relieved sigh.

"You okay?" she asks, slowly rolling over to face him. The way her thighs absently rub together before she settles is spellbinding.

The bend at her waist is more pronounced, and he places his hand there without much forethought. Maka's eyelids flutter low for a moment, her next inhale a little more sudden than the one before it. Even though sleep beckons his bones, he'd left her hanging and he'd very much like to give her an orgasm one way or another. His hand ghosts up the side of her ribs and trails back down to that really fascinating dip to continue to her thigh.

"Soul?"

"Oh. What?" Oops. "Uh, yeah. I'm great. …'Cept my back's gonna be sore and I didn't even make it five minutes," he sighs.

"Aw," she says with a staged pout that's still more amused cheekbones than anything. "I think I will be too, if it's any consolation."

Soul's hand pauses and lifts away with dread. "Did it hurt? Did I hurt you?" _How the fuck would that be consolation?_

Maka scoffs with impatience and catches his hand, reattaching it to her thigh. "_No_, you didn't hurt me. I would tell you, wouldn't I?"

…Probably. Probably loudly. With a fist to the face. "Still," he grumbles, decidedly less panicked, "I would've, you know, given you a handjob first." Hand-job? Wait, that's for dicks. Whatever. Maka gets the message, regardless, and the bed shakes with her shiver.

"I-I know. I didn't want you to, though."

"Uh." What does _that_ mean? He's really aware of his fingers all of a sudden. He'd like to think he's a pretty dexterous guy and not some ham-fingered buffoon, but maybe he's mistaken? "I." Is there a single polite way to ask _'Do you not find my fingers fuckable?'_, because if there is, he can't hash it out.

At his struggling silence, Maka ducks her head a little, one of her hands coming to meekly scratch the side of her nose. "Also, I may have touched myself in the shower. Earlier. Ssssssso… mmrghg."

He laughs, sort of. Or chokes. Mostly chokes. "You mean 'shower' as in—" he points over his shoulder, _"—__that one?_ That one. That I was just in."

She rubs her face, mortified but decidedly not in denial. "No, the shower in the suite next door," she flatlines. He can't do anything but grin so ridiculously that his face hurts, and when she gathers the courage to look up at him, she huffs. "Oh _stop—_ like I'm the only one here that does it in the shower!"

"I didn't!"

Even with her face approaching fire-engine-red, her death glare is still pretty potent.

He amends with, "...to_day.__"_

Maka buries her face into the bed, groaning with embarrassment. He hasn't been this amused since the time he'd caught her drinking milk from the carton when she thought he was in the bathroom.

"So were you thinking of me when you were cranking it—"

"Shut! **Face!"**

Even as she's shoving him away with the heel of her palm clocking somewhere around eighty miles per hour, he's laughing, because _that is such an affirmative._ She makes her pterodactyl noises and he's a little bit self-conscious of his nakedness and a little bit more in love than he was thirty seconds ago. And then there's a lack of mattress as he realizes just how close he is to careening off the bed. His gut clenches with the anticipation of falling, and he flails like a graceless fish. Maka blurts something still in a jurassic-era language, and grabs one of his flinging arms to keep him from plummeting. She hauls him back over and he rolls and snuggles into her for good measure.

"My hero," he says. "Would've landed on the birthday cake."

She looks like she wants to apologize but also like she wants to blame him for causing the whole thing, so she scrunches up her face and sighs out of her nose. "What did you wish for, anyway," she says, matter-of-factly resting one of her legs between his and pretending her face isn't melting off.

"Man, I asked you first."

Her mouth falls open and a squeak comes out. "I… I can't tell you."

Soul whines with an obnoxiousness he generally saves for semester finals. He's not sure how much of it is feigned. "That again?"

She's pretty serious about it, though. Her hand rests on his chest, fingers tracing her sincerity. Her eyes beg him not to press her about it. "I wanna tell you."

"But you won't risk it."

"Sorry. If it were something different, you'd be first to know. I'd tell you anything else."

Well. That does kind of make him feel better, even if her boss-level wish is still beyond his reach. She ducks her head again and he feels her lips briefly press on his neck like a reassurance. He wraps his arm around her and presses her closer.

"Then… how 'bout you tell me something different."

Maka leans her head back to look at him, which presses her tits into his chest in a delightful manner. She looks at him with suspicion. "Eh?"

He does his best to keep a smirk from inching up his face, but he can only do so much. "In exchange. I'll tell you what I wished for if you tell me something else first."

She's already on to him, and her body shifts against his with interest. "What do you want to know?"

With a gasp, her face brightens with her small, surprised smile when he smooths his hand across her hip and slides it down her abdomen. Dawn highlights her goosebumps and the silent challenge in her eyes.

"I wanna know how you touched yourself in the shower."

Her legs part to make way for his questing fingers, and she says, "Okay."

* * *

Maka's eyes are vivid. It's the first thing he thinks whenever he looks at them. _Vivid._ Vivid in the way that colors are bright and true and rich, but also in the way that dreams are vivid— too ornate to be real, too striking to be anything but imagined. The color, the shape, the depth together evoke images of wet meadows and shaded forests, so saturated with color and texture that one doubts they ever existed in life.

He's fallen into those eyes a hundred times, but they're still funny looking when they're crossed as they are now. She's trying to read the train schedule on her ticket, but it had not been printed with enough ink in the first place so it's a vain effort at best.

There's only one platform, and only one train scheduled, so he's not sure why she's so intent on reading the ticket to begin with. They're the only ones waiting on it.

So maybe it's the isolation that makes him say it.

"To kiss you."

She blinks and looks up, trying to focus properly. "W-What?"

"To kiss you. I have a lot of wishes, but that one was at the top, I guess," he says, hitching his dufflebag a little higher on his shoulder. He hadn't told her his wish this morning— after fooling around and having another go at sex, they'd slept the rest of the day before a brief pizza intermission and coming to the train station.

Maka does that brain-staring thing, doubtlessly reading all his romcom thoughts, but it doesn't really bother him as much as it had, before. "You cou—" she starts, but then stops abruptly. In a meticulous, Things-To-Do-List manner, she looks at the ticket in her hand, moves it from her right to her left, scoots over the three feet to his side, and interlocks her free hand with is.

She looks up again, and it's hard to tell in the afternoon light hitting her from the side but her eyes might be a little glossier than a second ago. "You could've done that anytime."

Soul shakes his head, smile wry. "I couldn't. A thousand times, I couldn't."

"Why?"

He takes a breath. Rolls a shoulder. "Scared."

Those vivid eyes flicker to his mouth and back up again. She makes a subtle motion with her face, beckoning him near. He bends and kisses her, and it's warm like the sun.

After a few beats of being _bashful pre-teens, damn it_, he clears his throat. "Seeing as I got my wish, I figure there's nothin' to jinx in telling you."

His meister scoffs, smiling as she bops him on the thigh with their connected hands.

"So," he fishes, "if you get your wish, will you tell me then?"

"You are so _determined,__ gosh—"_

"I can't help it! It's driving me crazy."

Maka rolls to the balls of her feet and back to her heels, looking away and spying the incoming train. "Here's the thing, though— I won't know if I got my wish until the day I die."

What? When she looks back at him, there's a myriad of earnest messages in her expression, and his heart goes very still, unprepared for conversations about death. "Hardcore wish," he says quietly.

She nods. She bites her lip and he can visibly see her muster her courage. "So I can't tell you til then." Her eyes shimmer and she says, "Will you wait that long?"

He swallows a tight lump in his throat. In that instant, he knows what it is— can hear it recited, practiced in her mind at every fountain, falling star, and roadway tunnel.

"I'll be there."

Maka gives him a big, teary smile like he's personally granted her wish. Their fingers clasp together tightly.

"Okay."

The train arrives, but he thinks he'd rather fly.

* * *

Special thanks to victoriapyrrhi, odat, chaoticlivi, rebornfromash, and everyone who screeched in capslock in the tags on tumblr. i love you.


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